


Cairde

by HunterPeverell



Series: A Chuisle Mo Chroí [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Asexual Bucky Barnes, Asexual Relationship, Asexual Steve Rogers, Asexuality, Awesome Peggy Carter, BAMF Peggy Carter, Bucky Barnes & Peggy Carter Friendship, Friendship, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers is a little shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-04-22 21:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14317437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: Bucky makes an unexpected friend.





	1. Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Title means “friends” in Irish.
> 
> I honestly meant to get this out months ago. Let's just say I've been having a rough few months and haven't been in the mood to edit this. It's still not quite to my liking, but I've put this off for long enough. Hopefully, actually publishing this will get me in the mood to finish my edits :)
> 
> The prompt I got for this is from Onethingconstant, and I’m so sorry it took this long! I really wanted to write this for you and I wanted it to be good. I hope this is something close to what you wanted. I did my best, but I don't know how good it is. I hope you enjoy this, though.

The day Bucky met Peggy was the day he was running late to his psychology class and tripped over a protruding slab of the sidewalk, running headlong into her stomach.

“Oof!” she hissed as they both went down.

Bucky’s cheeks flamed red as he muttered, “Sorry! Sorry!”

“It’s quite alright,” the young woman said as she stood and dusted off her suit pants. “That bit gets me too, sometimes.”

Bucky let out a weak chuckle. “Still. Hope you aren’t hurt.” The woman waved him off. “No, no, I’m fine. Are you hurt?”

“Not a bit,” Bucky promised her.

She offered him a firm nod. “Then I best be off. See you around, Bucky.”

“I—what?”

She was already walking off, but she offered him a smile over her shoulder. “You’ve got quite the rep around campus.”

Bucky blinked after her, but she never looked back.

***

The next time he ran into her, Bucky was running late to meet up with Steve.

“You being in a hurry is becoming standard,” Peggy said as she wiped off flakes of croissant Bucky had been holding in his hand and which was now on the ground between them.

“Sorry!” Bucky said. “Uh, kind of, um. I really don’t mean to keep doing this. Being in a hurry, I mean.”

Peggy waved him off. “Happens to us all in this society.”

“You sound like Steve,” Bucky said without thinking.

She arched an eyebrow. “Steve?”

“Uh, yeah, my best friend,” Bucky said. “And boyfriend. He’s always going off about the injustices in our society.”

“Sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”

Bucky look at her, with her perfectly coiled hair and her sharp brown eyes that gleamed with a wicked intelligence, and shuddered.

“I honestly think the world would crumble,” he told her.

She let out a surprised laugh. “Yeah?”

Bucky grinned. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Well,” she said. “I’m Peggy.”

“James,” Bucky said, accepting her hand.

“It’s falling out of fashion.” Peggy nodded to their bobbing hands.

“Well, yeah,” Bucky said. “People are becoming less inclined to touch strangers. What can I say, though? 'M kinda old fashioned.”

Peggy smiled and let their hands drop. “I’ll see you around.”

“I’m sure you will,” Bucky said, sidestepping her and continuing on his way.

***

The third time they met, they exchanged numbers.

“Might as well,” Bucky said. “And you’re pretty tolerable.” He offered her a wink with the last statement, and even though he could tell she wasn’t impressed, she was amused nevertheless.

“You cad,” she said, handing him his phone back. “I’m glad you’re taken, or I’d have punched you.”

“I have absolutely no doubt about that,” Bucky said, tucking his phone away. “And I’d deserve that.”

She flashed him a grin. “I’m glad you agree.”

Bucky shrugged. “Ain’t that hard to not be an asshole, in my opinion.”

“Well, others of your gender tend to find it much harder,” Peggy observed.

“Oh, trust me, I know,” Bucky said. “Growing up in the area I did, me and Steve saw a lot of it. Him being him, he tried to fight those yahoos. And he still keeps up with all that shit, y’know? Looking at the news and online sites and stuff.”

“I really do want to meet him sometime,” Peggy said. “How’d you two meet?”

“Middle School, I transferred in,” Bucky readily replied. “Little punk wasn’t sure he wanted to know me, but outta all the kids in that school, he was the only one who actually seemed to care about others, y’know?”

Peggy looked at him, her warm brown eyes hinting at some buried softness. “Those are always the best people.”

Bucky ducked his head, grinning. “They sure are.”


	2. Friendship

To be honest, Peggy and Bucky liked each other’s company. Bucky liked the fire that would spark in her eyes and she liked his ability to look at the world as it is, not how he’d like it to be. They’d meet up for coffee twice a week and talk back and forth, smiling most of the time, but sobering up when more serious topics arose in their words.

Bucky learned that Peggy was a Political Science and Psychology major with minors in Business, English, and Sociology. Bucky had never met anyone besides Steve so focused on a goal and so ready and able to achieve that goal.

She, in turn, learned about his major in English and minor in History, and though Bucky wasn’t as determined to save the world by fighting it as either Steve or Peggy, he was hoping to change it with his words, with his experiences, and with his soul.

Peggy thought it admirable, and though Bucky often felt as though he ought to be intimidated by her ferocious nature, he was quite used to fueling and redirecting the path of her blaze, as Steve was so similar, and as a result Peggy would often seek him out to run ideas by him and Bucky would get to see her rave at the world. There was something beautiful about being surrounded by people unwilling to let injustices slide. There was something hopeful.

Steve noticed, of course.

“New friend?” he asked.

Bucky pressed his nose into Steve’s neck for a moment before drawing away. He was going through a period of time where he didn’t like kissing, could only stand cuddling. Steve accepted it, piled on the cuddles that kept his limbs loose despite how he ranted about the world, let Bucky rub at the knobs on his spine.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “You should meet her. You’d get on like a house on fire.”

Steve’s eyebrow rose. “Really?”

Bucky let out a chuckle. “Really. You two were cut out of the same cloth, more’n likely.”

Steve pressed his thumb into the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “Sounds like a plan, then.”

***

Steve met Peggy on a cold November day, and Bucky stood back and watched them travel over a wide variety of topics, from social issues to politics, from historical events to the economy, and couldn’t believe that two such people could exist in the same time. It seemed too overwhelming for the world around them, as if there was more life in these two people than in the millions around them.

“How open are you to differing opinions?” Peggy asked early on in their discussion.

“Open,” Steve said. “Long as they’re well-backed and not at all bigoted.”

“Good.” Peggy let out a short laugh. "Good." She smiled at Steve, then, and Steve couldn't help but smile back. Bucky felt something warm settle in his chest, something dear and precious. 

Steve, at one point in time, launched into a rant about respecting other people’s boundaries and the concept of “special snowflakes” that left Peggy looking at him, elated, and Bucky snapped a picture with his phone. It would never equal up to seeing it in front of him in the here-and-now, but he could look back on it and smile.

“Buck.” Steve rolled his eyes, but Bucky merely laughed and grinned dashingly at Steve’s unimpressed glare and Peggy’s subtle amusement.

The draw of their conversation was too much, though, and soon both Steve and Peggy were back to debating, feeding one another’s fire. The cadence in their tone, the way they bounced off of one another—it was as if they had known each other for years, not two hours.

“Thanks for listening,” Steve finally said, winding down from his ranting. He leaned back in his chair, moving around until his bony shoulders brushed into Bucky’s. “Most people tune out ages ago. ‘Cept Bucky.”

Bucky squeezed Steve’s knee as Peggy shot them both an amused glance. “I quite enjoyed listening to you both,” she said. “I agree with many of your points, Steve, there are just a few things I wanted to discuss further about Stark Industries if you wanted…”

Bucky couldn’t see Steve’s expression, but he didn’t need to to know that Steve’s eyes had once more lit up with the fire perpetually simmering in his heart.

Steve pushed away from Bucky to lean closer to Peggy. “I sure would.”

And then the two were off again, ranting and talking to one another about the foreign policies of Stark Industries.

Most of it went over Bucky’s head, but he was content to sit back and sip his coffee, listening to the rise and fall of their debate and feel the heat of Steve’s body so close to his own.


	3. Protest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Some swearing. Also, Bucky punches a guy.

After that, there was no stopping them.

“You got everything?” Bucky shouted as Steve and Peggy piled out of the car, pamphlets and signs in hand.

“Yes, but be quick!” Peggy shouted back as she and Steve took off, rushing towards the crowd, who were chanting, “Keep Net Neutrality! Keep Net Neutrality!”

As soon as the doors slammed shut behind them, Bucky peeled away from the curb in search of a parking space. 

While normally it was easier to take the subway, Bucky had bought a car as Steve had wanted to go to protests in D.C., Pittsburgh, and even Philadelphia. 

“It's fine,” Bucky told him as Steve glared at his new car. “It's a good investment, y’know.”

“Buck…” Steve had protested, but Bucky stayed firm.

Now, Bucky was trying to find parking in Queens and muttered obscenities under his breath.  
By the time he found a spot, almost twenty minutes had passed, and Bucky had begun obsessively checking his phone for messages fifteen minutes ago.

He felt quite relieved when his screen remained clear.

Bucky hurried down the streets, keeping an eye out for their meeting spot. He stepped around people in business suits as they hurried to and fro, teenagers who were eating out and giggling to one another, and harried women in jeans and zany t-shirts ducking in an out of shops.

He hooked a right down a car-lined street and saw a park up ahead. There seemed to be a commotion, and Bucky picked up his pace as he yanked out his phone and looked at the screen.

Peggy: _I tried. Cauliflower._

“Well, crap,” Bucky mumbled and abruptly broke into a run, phone clutched tight in his fist.

By the time he skidded to a halt at the park, the police were there, one of the trash cans was on fire, and Steve was standing on the edge of a fountain yelling at a white dude with dreadlocks (who was still taller than steve, even with Steve’s added height) about transgender people serving in the military.

“Sorry,” Bucky said to a nearby protester. Their sign read _Equal for All, not More for Some!_ “But what happened here?”

“Counter-protesters showed up,” the dude explained. “They lit the trash on fire. Police are rounding up a lot of us, but none of them are getting close to that spit.”

“Why not?”

They raised their eyebrows. “You see that little dude? You wanna mess with him? He looks like a stiff wind could knock him over, but I bet he’d take you down with him.”

“You’re not wrong,” Bucky sighed before marching through the crowd and entering the fray. He elbowed people out of his way and pushed through with a brute force he rarely displayed, for he rarely had the need to.

The police were shouting and trying to make their way to the center, where Steve and dreadlocks dude were standing, but the knot of chanting, shouting protesters and counter-protesters were proving hard to enter.

Bucky reached them first, and saw no sign of Peggy, though he hadn’t expected to.

“Steve!” he shouted. “What the fuck?”

Steve barely acknowledged his presence, though Bucky hadn’t expected him to. When Steve got into an argument, he blocked out the rest of the world. It was something Bucky loved about him, that singular focus, but right now he could strangle him.

“Steve,” he repeated, stepping close and standing slightly in front of the guy Steve was trying to pick a fight with.

“Fuck off, man!” the dude spat, pushing Bucky.

Who promptly turned around and smashed the fleshy bridge between his thumb and finger into the guy’s throat.

The guy choked and dropped, clutching at his windpipe.

“Bucky,” Steve said, sounding surprised and concerned.

“C’mon,” Bucky said, grabbing Steve’s arm and helping him hop down from where he stood.

“What?” Steve snapped.

“Police are here, and we need to leave,” Bucky said. “They probably know your face, idiot.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but followed Bucky through the crowd who, now that their source of entertainment had disbanded, was now moving away from the police at a rapid, chaotic pace.

“Police!” Bucky heard. “Stop!”

They didn’t stop.

**

By the time Bucky deemed them safe, they were halfway across the city on the subway, heading for home.

Bucky pulled out his phone and opened his conversation with Peggy.

Bucky: _didn’t get arrested get me a coffee fml_

Peggy: _Suck it up._

Bucky: _but coffeee?/_

Peggy: _I wouldn’t dream of depriving you._

Bucky: _< 3_

“Peggy’s getting us coffee,” Bucky said.

“Were you two doing that stupid code word thing?” Steve asked.

“It’s good to have a plan where you’re concerned,” Bucky snapped. “Jesus Christ, Steve, dude was almost six five!”

“I had him,” Steve said.

Bucky closed his eyes. “ _Steve…_ ”

“ _Bucky,_ ” Steve mimicked. “I was fine!”

“You’re a fucking chihuahua,” Bucky told him. “Think you’re bigger than you actually are.”

Steve smiled fiercely then, suddenly, looking exactly like the little shit Bucky knew him to be. “Yeah, well, it’s gotten me this far in life.”

Bucky shook his head, but he was unable to keep his answering smile off his face. “You’re crazy.”

“Maybe,” Steve said as his head thudded onto Bucky’s shoulder. “You’re stuck with me anyway.”

Bucky closed his eyes, rested his cheek on Steve’s hair. “Good.”

Then, with his eyes closed, he mumbled, “And for fuck’s sake, stop picking fights with people bigger than you.”

He felt more than heard Steve snort. “Not likely.”

Bucky shook his head and sighed, “Worth a shot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cauliflower -- I'd like to say I really enjoyed Logan Lucky.
> 
> Not a lot of Peggy in this particular one, I'm afraid. And the reason Peggy made herself scarce was because a) in case Steve and Bucky needed bail, b) because neither Steve nor Bucky nor Peggy really want her to have a criminal record with what she's trying to do in government and politics, and c) to get herself and Bucky coffee and then hear every single detail with a wicked gleam in her eyes.


	4. Defense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mentions of a workplace predator. See endnotes for a longer description.

“Odo Martin-Harris is a freak,” Peggy grumbled as she slid into the seat across from Steve and Bucky.

“Oh?” Bucky said mildly.

Steve, beside him, blinked up at her, eyes glazed from where he had been reading the morning’s news on his phone. His glasses had slipped down his nose, and he impatiently pushed them back up, a little movement Bucky loved.

“Yes.” Peggy sniffed. “He sets me on edge.”

“Well, with a name like Odo…” Bucky mumbled.

“What’s he done?” Steve demanded.

Peggy huffed and rolled her eyes. “He hasn’t hurt me, but he makes the woman I work with uncomfortable.”

“Need our help?” Steve pressed.

“No,” Peggy said.

“Peggy’s the most capable person we know, why would she need our help?” Bucky added.

“I just want to rant, Steve,” Peggy said. Her eyes softened. “But thank you for the offer.”

Steve settled down, though not without a huff of annoyance. “I just want to help.”

“Yes, I know you do,” Peggy said. “But the way I’d like you to help me is brainstorming. I wanted your opinions on how to catch someone in the act. I’ve a few ideas, but I wanted to have your take on it…”

“Is he white?” Bucky asked.

“As mayonnaise.”

Bucky nodded. “Then he’s most likely cocky. He’s confident the system will work for him, so he’s likely to slip up. If he makes the women around him uncomfortable, it probably means he’s doing something in the open.”

“Which means you just have to watch him,” Steve continued. “He’ll slip up.”

“And you’ll get him,” Bucky finished as he mimed taking a picture.

Peggy nodded, her face impassive.

“You’re probably already planning something better,” Bucky said.

She smiled, small and deadly. “He won’t know what hit him.”

“Well,” Bucky said. “Give me a call if you need me, okay?”

She held his eyes for a moment, weighing him, assessing him, letting him know she was taking his request seriously.

“I will,” she said.

Bucky’s lips curved upwards. “Thanks.”

“Well, we can still beat him up. Or shout at him,” Steve said.

Bucky laughed. “I love it when it’s close to finals. You’re hilarious when you’re stressed.”

“My back hurts,” Steve grumbled.

Bucky knew this, having listened to Steve complain about his back for years, but he took the hint and dropped his hand to massage the muscles in Steve’s back.

When he looked back at Peggy, she was looking at them with such fondness Bucky thought his heart might burst.

Their eyes met and Peggy tilted her head to the side, giving him a wider smile.

And Bucky smiled back.

**

Later, Bucky heard about the man’s firing. Apparently, he’d been caught with inappropriate videos of women on his phone, and had been caught in the act yet another one.

Neither Bucky nor Steve said anything to Peggy, but Bucky made sure to bake her Steve’s ma’s best pie and Steve just gave her a little smile and did his best to reign himself in at the next protest.

Not by much, mind, but a bit.

Which was more than they could have asked for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He’s caught and punished, and Peggy herself is not hurt or victimized at all. He took videos of women she worked with without their knowledge on his phone.


	5. Nighttime

The screen of the TV lit their faces up, all wrapped up in the dimness of Steve and Bucky’s little living room.

_Time After Time_ played on the screen while Bucky watched, a slice of pizza in his hand. On the floor in front of the couch, Steve and Peggy put signs for their next protest together.

“Y’know,” Bucky said as Steve grabbed a green marker. “You guys could take a night off.”

“No, we don’t,” Steve said, scribbling in a letter.

Bucky looked at him, eyes narrowed, before setting aside his food and standing up.

Steve didn’t pay him any mind until Bucky picked him up.

“Bucky!” Steve shrieked, arms and legs flailing. “Put me down!”

“Nope!” Bucky said, sitting back down on the couch and hugging Steve close to his chest. “Watch this episode with me, Steve. Just this once.”

Steve protested, of course he did, but his heart wasn’t into it. Bucky knew because Steve’s sharp elbows didn’t dig into Bucky’s side, and Steve’s head didn’t ram into his chin.

Instead, he cuddled Steve close and breathed in his scent and watched H.G. Wells as he ran about on the screen.

He felt Peggy settle on the couch beside them, her arm coming to rest around his shoulders, her perfectly done nails stroking Steve’s hair.

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he looked at Peggy, his closest friend, and Steve, the man he would stay with until he died. He was in an apartment he could afford with enough food to keep himself and his closest friend alive, and he felt, for once, that things might turn out okay. That his life might amount to something.

Bucky’s heart felt full and warm and wonderful as he looked at all the love he’d ever need in his world.

“Stop thinking so much,” Steve whispered.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Bucky mumbled back.

He knew Steve was smiling as he said, “Shut up, Buck.”

Bucky pressed his nose to the bony ridges of Steve’s spine, feeling the soft skin of Steve’s neck. “Whatever you say, punk.”

“Shut up, you two,” said Peggy.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky and Steve said together.

Bucky squeezed Steve tighter for a brief moment and then let his arms relax, letting himself exist in that moment and allowing himself to feel happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand we're done here. Thank you to all who left kudos and comments! It means a lot :)
> 
> I'm going to leave this series as "unfinished," but I highly doubt I'll be writing anything more for it. Thank you all!


End file.
